1)To determine if the presence of emotional factors related to the personality predispose to the occurrence of non-infectious uveitis. 2)To assess if previous stressing situations in personal life are associated with the onset of non-infectious uveitis.

Methods

This is a prospective study performed in the Uveitis Section and the Department of Mental Health, at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Thirty-six patients divided into two groups (18 with non-infectious uveitis and 18 without uveitis) were asked to fill out the Type D Scale-14 (DS14) in order to assess Type D personality, consisting in negative affectivity (NA) plus social inhibition (SI) and the Social Readjustment Rating Questionnaire(SRRQ) so as to determine whether stressful life events contribute to the onset of uveitis. NA is related to dysphoria worry and irritability. SI covers discomfort in social interactions, reticence and lack of social poise. Data concerning socio-demographics as gender, age, best-corrected visual acuity at time of questionnaire(in both groups) and anatomical classification of uveitis following the SUN-criteria, age at onset, time since diagnosis, uni-or bilateral disease (in the group with uveitis) were collected. Data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney test. The significance level was 0.05.

Results

The frequency of Type D personality was 44,44% in the uveitis group and 27,78% in the group of patients without uveitis being this difference non statistically significative (P=0.298). Besides, though NA subscale showed similar medium values in the two groups(P=1.00), the SI subscale yielded greater values in the uveitis group. In this case, the difference was statistically significative (P= 0.024).The risk of illness characterized by the presence of stressful events in the person’s life measured by the SRRQ was comparable in both groups (P= 0.235).

Conclusions

The presence of stressful events in personal life has not shown signs of being a determinant factor in triggering non-infectious uveitis. On the other hand, patients with non-infectious uveitis show an inhibition in the expression of emotions/behaviors in social interactions and a tendency towards negative affectivity. Although Type D personality has not reached a significative difference in this sample, the results suggest the fact that this personality type should be taken into account as another issue to be approached in the therapeutical management of these patients.